A big country music fan, Haula had talked to his girlfriend, Kristen, about attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the night of Oct. 1, just a slap shot away from the Vegas Golden Knights' home of T-Mobile Arena.

Haula, the former Wild center selected by the Golden Knights in June’s expansion draft, had a couple friends visiting from Minnesota that were attending the concert, and the Golden Knights’ preseason finale against the San Jose Sharks — a game Haula would score in — would be over by 7:45.

“Some of the guys even went on Friday, and the concert was right next to the arena,” Haula said.

But instead, Haula decided to join several of his teammates for dinner just down the strip at the Cosmopolitan.

“I left the rink at 9, and the thing happened at 10,” Haula said. “Just chaos. It was terrible.”

Shortly after 10, a gunman smashed open a window from a 32nd-floor suite at the Mandalay Bay and began firing at unsuspecting concertgoers as Jason Aldean closed the third and final night of the festival. Fifty-eight people were killed, more than 500 injured.

Golden Knights defenseman Deryk Engelland, a longtime Las Vegas resident, gave a powerful speech before the team's home opener, a little over a week after the Oct. 1 shooting. (Credit: Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

Down the road at the Cosmo and out of harm’s way, Haula looked out the window at Las Vegas Boulevard.

“You know how Vegas is, but it was an absolute ghost town,” Haula said. “Just cops and ambulances and S.W.A.T. everywhere.”

Haula said the “toughest part for us was social media when we were in there. You don’t know yet what’s really going on, and then you’re reading there are multiple shooters or now someone’s walking in here and someone’s walking in there.”

“So I just decided,” Haula said, his voice cracking, “I’m not moving. I’ll just wait it out.”

In the days following, the Golden Knights played a pivotal role in helping the community heal.

They attended blood drives, honored first responders and visited victims in hospitals.

“We, as a group, had a meeting the next day, and we wanted to go and help in any way possible and just give our support,” Haula said. “It was sad. It was really sad. Emotions were running really high. We went to these hospitals and talked with police officers, and it was just … so sad.”

On Oct. 10, the Golden Knights played their first home game, against the Arizona Coyotes.

It was not your typical home-opener celebration, particularly for the first home game for a new franchise.

The Golden Knights paid homage to the heroes of Oct. 1 by having players accompany firefighters, doctors, nurses, police officers and paramedics on the ice. They honored survivors during a ceremonial puck drop, honored the victims with 58 seconds of silence and defenseman Deryk Engelland, a longtime Las Vegas resident, gave an impressive pregame speech.

“We had to get the ceremony right because we were suddenly on a huge platform in Las Vegas and it was a big platform to get the message out about what happened here and how important it was for the hockey team and the community to help people heal and grieve and persevere,” Golden Knights General Manager George McPhee said. “We just thought it was critical that we got the ceremony right to honor the victims and support the families and recognize the first responders.

“The game was really secondary to us and in some ways didn’t matter. This was a bigger event, a bigger issue, a bigger story, and we had to do it right. And thankfully we think we got it right. It’s not about being proud, it’s not about accepting accolades. It was about showing we were part of the community now and here to support. There was a huge expression of emotion that night. You hope you never have to experience one of these things at any point in your lifetime, and for some people it’s over, for some people it will never be over and for us we won’t let it be over.

“We have to continue to support.”

The Golden Knights beat the Coyotes, 5-2, that night to open the season 3-0 in a run that included eight wins in their first nine games. Until a recent blip of three consecutive losses, including a 4-2 defeat in Thursday’s first-ever visit to Minnesota, the Golden Knights were leading the Pacific Division.

They have set several inaugural-season records, including becoming the first expansion team to win their first three games, win eight times in their first nine games and win 15 times in their first 22 games (the 1926-27 Rangers had the record with 15 wins in their first 25 games).

They’ve had two five-game winning streaks and an eight-game home winning streak.

“Everyone hopes for a start like this,” McPhee said. “You seldom ever see it. We’re delighted. We didn’t expect it. It’s early, but it’s a great start for us. We wanted to be competitive. We’re trying to win every game. We’ll see where that takes us. It has been a good start, but it’s a long way to go. We hope we’re talking this way late in March.”

If the Golden Knights are in the hunt come late February, McPhee will have some serious decisions to make. His goal is still building a foundation for the future, and key players like left wing James Neal (12 goals, 7 assists), center Jonathan Marchessault (9, 14), left wing David Perron (6, 13) and defenseman Luca Sbisa (1, 7) are potential free agents next summer, and thus attractive potential rentals come trade deadline time.

“That’s a decision we don’t have to make now, thankfully,” McPhee said.

They studied expansion drafts galore, especially the Florida Panthers’ in 1993 and the Minnesota Wild’s in 2000.

The Panthers truly used that expansion draft to build a team that accelerated to the Stanley Cup Final in Year 3. The Wild, similarly, advanced shockingly to the Western Conference Final in Year 3.

The Golden Knights tried to draft players of high character and low ego and so far have been beating teams through speed and work ethic.

“Those are the two takeaways that we got meeting with management that had been through expansion,” McPhee said. “(First Panthers GM) Bob Clarke, one of the big takeaways from him was to make sure you have a team of workers. (First Wild GM) Doug Risebrough emphasized speed. So, we tried to accomplish both. And, so far we have those two elements. And, our coach is doing a heck of a job.”

McPhee chose Gerard Gallant from a list of several qualified candidates after the Panthers unceremoniously kicked him to the curb last November.

Gerard Gallant's exit from the Panthers was notorious: He was spotted getting into a cab after being fired following a Nov. 2016 game in Carolina. Now, he's leading an impressive young team in Vegas. (Credit: Karl B DeBlaker/AP)

“He has a very, very good and deep understanding of this game and how it should be played and a very good understanding of how to relate to players,” McPhee said. “They enjoy working for him. He’s the kind of guy you don’t want to let him down because you enjoy playing for him so much.”

McPhee said he and his staff needed “every minute of that last year to scout and to put together a master plan and just go through all the details in scouting meetings.” Every single decision McPhee and his staff made in these scouting meetings affected another, but “we had an excellent software engineer create a tool for us that kept things really, really orderly and precise. Whenever we clicked one player, it sort of changed the whole paradigm.

“We wanted to try to claim the best players we could get, needless to say, but they also had to be good people and we had to keep an eye on proper team construction. That wasn’t easy. But we did the best we could, and crossed our fingers and hoped when we got going in October we’d have a competitive, entertaining team, and a team Las Vegas fans would enjoy.”

McPhee and his staff should feel proud.

So far, on and off the ice, the Golden Knights have been a winner.

(Top image: Before their home opener, the Golden Knights honored the victims and first responders of the Oct. 1 shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival. Credit: Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports)

Michael Russo is a Senior Writer covering the Wild and the NHL for The Athletic Minnesota. He has covered the NHL since 1995, previously for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Minneapolis Star Tribune. Michael is a three-time Minnesota Sportswriter of the Year and in 2017 was named the inaugural Red Fisher Award winner as best beat writer in the NHL. Russo can be seen on Fox Sports North and the NHL Network; and heard on 100.3-FM in Minneapolis and on the Russo-Souhan Show (mnspn.com). Follow Michael on Twitter @RussoHockey.